Mary Mc Leod Bethune Biography

Mary McLeod Bethune, an African American teacher, was one of the great
educators in United States history. She was a leader of women, an adviser
to several American presidents, and a powerful champion of equality among
races.

Early life and education

Mary McLeod was born in Mayesville, South Carolina. Her parents, Samuel
and Patsy McLeod, were former slaves, as were most of her brothers and
sisters. (Mary was the fifteenth of seventeen children.) After her
parents were freed, they saved up and bought a small farm of their own.
Mary helped her parents on the family farm. When she was eleven years
old, she entered a school established by a missionary from the
Presbyterian Church. She walked five miles to and from school each day,
then spent her evenings teaching everything she had learned to the rest
of her family.

Later Mary received a scholarship to attend Scotia Seminary, a school
for African American girls in Concord, North Carolina. She was strongly
influenced by both white and black teachers there and met some of the
people with whom she would work closely later. Although she was very
serious about her studies, this did not prevent her from becoming a
lively dancer and developing a lasting love of music. Dynamic and alert,
she was very popular. Her classmates looked to her as a leader. After
graduating in 1893 she attended the Moody Bible Institute in Chicago,
Illinois.

Career as an educator

After graduation from the Moody Bible Institute, Mary wished to become a
missionary in Africa. However, she was told that African Americans were
not allowed to take positions like that. She became an instructor at the
Presbyterian Mission School in Mayesville in 1896 and later at Haines
Institute in Augusta, Georgia, in 1896 and 1897. While she was working
at Kindell Institute in Sumpter, South Carolina, in 1897 and 1898, she
met Albertus Bethune, whom she later married and had a son with. Her
devotion to the education of African American children caused problems
with the marriage, however, and the couple eventually separated.

In 1904 the construction of the Florida East Coast Railroad brought
hundreds of African Americans to the area looking for work. Bethune saw
a need for education to improve the lives of these people. She began her
career as an educator in earnest when she rented a two-story house in
Daytona Beach, Florida, and began the difficult task of establishing a
school for African American girls. Thus, in an era when most African
American children received little or no education, the Daytona Literary
and Industrial School for Training Negro Girls was begun in October
1904, with six pupils (five girls and her own son). There was no
equipment—crates were used for desks, charcoal took the place of
pencils, and ink came from crushed berries.

At first Bethune did everything herself—teaching, administrative
duties, handling the money, and keeping the school clean. She also
searched garbage dumps for items that the school could restore and use,
such as furniture and pieces of wood. Later she was able to secure a
staff, many of whom worked loyally for her for many years. To help pay
for expansion of the school, Bethune and her pupils baked pies and made
ice cream to sell to nearby construction workers. In addition to her
regular classes, Bethune organized classes for the children of
turpentine workers. In these ways she satisfied her desire to serve as a
missionary.

As the school at Daytona grew, it needed more money to run successfully.
Bethune began to seek donations from anywhere she could. In 1912 she
interested James M. Gamble of the Procter and Gamble Company of
Cincinnati, Ohio, who contributed to the school and served as chairman
of its board of trustees until his death. In 1923 Bethune's
school for girls merged with Cookman Institute of Jacksonville, Florida,
a school for boys. The new school became known as Bethune-Cookman
Collegiate Institute, soon renamed Bethune-Cookman College. Bethune
served as president of the college until her retirement in 1942. She
remained a trustee of the college to the end of her life. By 1955 the
college had a faculty (teachers and administrative staff) of one hundred
and a student enrollment of over one thousand.

Other activities

Bethune's business activities were confined to the Central Life
Insurance Company of Tampa, Florida, of which she was president for
several years; the Afro-American Life Insurance Company of Jacksonville,
which she served as director; and the Bethune-Volusia Beach Corporation,
a recreation area and housing development she founded in 1940. In
addition she wrote numerous magazine and newspaper articles and
contributed chapters to several books. In 1932 she founded and organized
the National Council of Negro Women and became its president. By 1955
the organization had a membership of eight hundred thousand.

Bethune also gained national recognition in 1936, when President
Franklin D. Roosevelt (1882–1945) appointed her director of
African American affairs in the National Youth Administration and a
special adviser on minority affairs. She served for eight years and
supervised the development of employment opportunities and recreational
facilities for African American youth throughout the United States. She
also served as special assistant to the secretary of war during World
War II (1939–45). In the course of her government assignments she
became a close friend of Eleanor Roosevelt (1884–1962). During
her long career Bethune received many honorary (received without
fulfilling the usual requirements) degrees and awards, including the
Haitian Medal of Honor and Merit (1949), the highest award of the
Haitian government. Mary McLeod Bethune died in Daytona Beach on May 18,
1955, of a heart attack. She was buried on the campus of Bethune-Cookman
College.

this article is very detailed and great did you know that i know some one that lives down the street from her house and we are going on a field trip to her house and her granddads picture is in there because he graduated from there so did her grandma.isnt that great!! write me back if you can thanks oh and i am doing a report now on her soo if you have any ideas just write me back and tell me